A Study of Critical Literacy Work with Beginning English Language Learners: An Integrated Approach

Abstract

This article reports some main findings of a year-long participatory action research study of critical literacy (CL) practices with middle school recent immigrant English language learners (ELLs) in Ontario, Canada. The CL program followed an integrated instructional model informed by Cummins' (2001) Academic Expertise Framework and Janks' (2010) synthesis model of CL as well as the poststructuralist/feminist advocacy for emotional engagement and self-reflexivity in CL education. The researcher and the teacher collaboratively developed an emergent curriculum based on the ELLs' concerns about discrimination and cultural adjustment. Through these transformative literacy practices, students gained not only language skills but also a sense of efficacy for social change. The research challenges the linear and segregated view of literacy and CL development, and points to the need to position ELLs as competent learners and to structure classroom conditions and practices to facilitate their gradual development as critical language users.